UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk
Oct 15, 2013

A decade ago, I heard a Catholic lawyer who’d made a career of representing religious institutions in sex abuse cases describe the difference between reporting a wayward clergyman to a Methodist or Episcopal bishop versus “one of ours.” In the former case, he’d sit down in the Protestant leader’s living room, with the photos of children and grandchildren on the mantle, and the man’s sympathy would at once go to the abused. In the latter, the meeting would take place in a chancery conference room and the first words out of His Excellency’s mouth would be, “Poor Father.”

This memory comes to mind after reading Grant Gallicho’s fine account over at dotCommonweal of the current mess in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Thanks to brave whistleblowing by its former canon lawyer, it has become clear…